Why Politics Is So Empty

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Clarissa

October 19, 2014

And this is from Carlo Bordoni who co-authored State of Crisis with Bauman:

The tragedy of the modern state lies in its inability to implement at a global level the decisions taken locally.

Everything of importance happens at a global level where the decisions made at the state level simply don’t reach. As a result, democratically elected politicians look impotent and irrelevant. Voters get disillusioned and see no point in participating in the political process. Electoral promises become more and more trivial (“we promise not to be as bad as our opponents,” “We promise to be against big government since government decides so little anyway.”)

Electoral campaigns concentrate on silly meaningless issues of whether a candidate treated his dog right or ate tuna conserves as a student. The public treats elections as entertainment because it knows they have little value beyond that.

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3 responses to “Why Politics Is So Empty”

musteryou

October 19, 2014

It’s not that empty, but people choose the party that will punish them some more instead of loosening the noose around their necks a bit. This cynicism is self-defeating.

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Walsh

October 20, 2014

“And this is from Carlo Bordoni who co-authored ‘State of Crisis’ with Bauman: The tragedy of the modern state lies in its inability to implement at a global level the decisions taken locally.” (I haven’t read their book since I suspect I wouldn’t find it in Fiction — though I don’t really differentiate between the two. It’s just that non-fiction writers tend to put out more entertaining books. Oh, well …) On the other hand, I would have a pretty hard time believing the tenets of a book which assumes that local decisions are in some way “wiser” than those arrived at by the state. I think America (and, hey, throw in the rest of the west) should step back and evaluate both local and national and international agendas for what they really portend. It isn’t really hard to see that much of America’s local governance has little concern for those who they govern. They are too busy paying homage to their “superiors”. Much local governance is in the pocket of the extreme right wing. If so (or even close to “so”), I would never accept the premise that local decisions should automatically supersede state, national or international affairs. All such decisions should be based on inherent merit. And that is something that nobody in political circles talks about — from precinct to national.

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1. Clarissa
  
  October 20, 2014
  
  “On the other hand, I would have a pretty hard time believing the tenets of a book which assumes that local decisions are in some way “wiser” than those arrived at by the state.”
  
  – “Local decisions”, in this book, means decisions taken by states. The point that every contemporary thinker today is making is that states (even the enormous ones, such as the US and Russian Federation) have become parochial and impotent. They can’t offer any solutions to the really crucial problems of today because those problems take place on a different level.
  
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